Newsmakers of 2011 11-20

Sierra Nevada works on Dream Chaser

LOUISVILLE – The future of manned spaceflight could be made in Colorado, and if it is, its cradle could be the Boulder Valley.

A low-slung, unassuming warehouse in the Colorado Technology Center in Louisville, to be precise.

That is the home of the space systems group of the Sierra Nevada Corp., a privately held company based in Sparks, Nevada that is trying to build a spacecraft that would replace NASA’s soon-to-be retired fleet of space shuttles.

The spacecraft, named the Dream Chaser Orbital Space Transportation System, would carry a crew of up to seven passengers and cargo into…